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Andrew Seel
Andrew is Managing Director of content consultancy Qube. A successful businessman with 16 years experience in the industry, he’s been a Senior Editor at AOL as well as Creative Director (and co-founder) of award-winning interactive agency Getfrank. Qube creates and manages content for email marketing, web, mobile and print communications.
Vogue Mail

Vogue.com sends out a daily news email to draw readers to the website and promote ‘Vogue TV’ – its fashion news and interviews video feature.

However, the email bears no likeness to Vogue’s sleek online (and offline) brand identity, quite the opposite in fact – it appears to have been done on a shoestring budget. The general look and feel is messy, cheap and unprofessional.

Most importantly, it misses opportunities to generate click-throughs and draw readers to key areas of the site.

Analysis

1. The logo on the email is different to that on the Vogue website. One of the basic rules of branding is to keep your image consistent.

2. The first thing I can see, below the logo, is the opportunity to unsubscribe. While it’s important to have this in a clear and prominent place, there’s no reason to put the unsubscribe button somewhere it will get your attention before the editorial content.

3. Above anything, fashion is visually stimulating.  So why is the main image so small and uninspiring? Time-poor internet users won't spend time sifting through the muddled text to find what they want. They need visual triggers to give clues to the email’s content.

4. The text is messy and confusing. Centrally aligned, bold, underlined and capitalised copy is really difficult to read and the link text is far too long. The use of asterisks to define sections also looks unprofessional.

The blue linked areas of text stand out and grab my attention first. However they are simply a list of designer names (some repeated several times) and tell me nothing about the pages they link to. Readers won’t spend time decoding this mess.

5. The editorial content is a confusing mix of information with no clearly delineated sections. The headings 'Today’s Breaking News', 'In the News' and 'More News', get repetitive and don't actually reflect the content. Rather than news, the linked pages are actually 'Vogue TV' clips –the only genuine news articles are hidden at the bottom of the email. This is misleading and confusing.

6. Without reading the lengthy link text in the 'More News' section in detail, I wouldn't know it was an invitation to join Vogue’s forum. This is a missed opportunity and should feature a much firmer call to action.

7. Leaving the special offer promotion until last seems crazy. Giving no visual indicators as to what’s on offer seems crazier still. This isn’t the only missed promotional opportunity either. Vogue's website offers so much more than this newsletter suggests.

Click on 'next ' to see what changes Andrew recommended ...
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